Trying to duplicate changes across faces of a dodecahedron
You can obtain this result, using duplicate linked objects:



If you duplicate linked AltD all duplicates are sharing the same geometry.

So to do it from a dodecaedron:



The gif above was becoming to big, but you see the principle:


Add a dodecahedron, enter edit mode, select and duplicate a face then separate it P
Select this newly created face, duplicate linked AltD then rotate around the first axis (front view)
Select the two faces, again duplicate linked and rotate along a second axis
Do this until you obtain the 12 faces


Once your individual faces edit finished, you can come back to a single mesh doing the following:




Select all the dupli objects
Then in the menu, object/make single user/object and data, and validate for the selection (edit: in fact this step is not useful)
Join them CtrlJ
Enter edit mode and remove doubles